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April 26, 2009

What should California do with its (former) juve killer?

This New York Times piece, headlined "A Killer at 16, and Still in California’s Juvenile Justice System Decades Later," documents a notable case that perhaps lacks any easy solution. Here is how the piece starts:

Except for one detail and one horrifying crime, Donald Schmidt is a run-of-the-mill juvenile offender. He watches television, does chores, talks to his lawyer and waits for his release.

Donald Schmidt, 37, molested and drowned a 3-year-old girl. The detail is his age: Mr. Schmidt is 37, the oldest defendant ever in California’s juvenile justice system. Just 16 when he molested and drowned a 3-year-old girl while high on methamphetamine, he has been in juvenile facilities for two decades, sometimes alongside teenagers who were not yet born when he was convicted.

Under California law, juvenile offenders who commit serious crimes can be kept in the system until they are 25. Mr. Schmidt’s detention, though, has been extended under a rarely invoked state code that allows continued detention if a jury finds the inmate has a “mental disorder, defect or abnormality that causes the person to have serious difficulty controlling his or her dangerous behavior.”

Because Mr. Schmidt was convicted as a juvenile and continued to be held under the mental health code, he cannot be transferred to an adult facility.

The code requires such petitions for extended detention to be renewed or rejected every two years. On Tuesday, prosecutors will again go to trial to argue that Mr. Schmidt should remain in juvenile custody, an argument they have made repeatedly, and successfully, since 1997, when he was first eligible for release. “We believe he’s a psychopath,” said Bob Lee, the district attorney in Santa Cruz County. “And we believe has he has no regrets or remorse for his conduct.”

Comments

He would not be alive but for the protection of the rent seeking, criminal cult enterprise. He does generate massive employment for government workers.

Any criminal lover judge releasing him must be mandated to send him to a group home next to his own residence.

I would appreciate the citation of the rule prohibiting his transfer to an adult facility. Are there no committed mental patients in adult prison? It is likely that a third of adult prison beds are filled with prisoners with serious mental diagnoses.

He also illustrates the consequences of allowing child sexual abuse. Children are less often traumatized, and less often avoid it. They are more likely to learn about sex before ready, and to do it to others. One is curious about the number of victims the defendant had prior to his arrest. Likely 100's.

That is the consequence of imposed sex ed. It is forced on decent families by vile feminist and homosexual lawyers to impose their sick propaganda agendas on American decent families, down to Kindergarten. They want to promote bastardy, to generate massive social pathologies, that in turn generate lawyer jobs, salaries, and power.

Thank a lawyer for the murder of that little girl, by having the defendant on the street, by allowing his molestation, by allowing his molester to be loose, and by teaching everyone about sex down to kindergarten, at the point of a gun to promote sicko lawyer, family killing agenda.

Why does the lawyer hierarchy seek to destroy the family? It competes for authority with central government, a wholly owned subsidiary of the criminal cult enterprise. The cult hierarchy makes 99% of its policy decisions. These are totally biased in favor of lawyer rent seeking.

Pretend, I mandate a bomb making education course on all students, even against parental opposition. I tell kindergarten students, do not make bombs until you are adults. Will we get less bomb making by children by greater awareness of the problem of bomb making in our society? Or, will we get more bombing making by children by their greater awareness of the problem of bomb making in our society, from teaching them methods of bomb making?

How is the result of mandatory sex indoctrination imposed by lawyer feminists and homosexuals on our children any less "foreseeable" than this totally irresponsible, dangerous proposal for bomb making ed, addressing a serious problem in our society?

Abstract:
A nine-year-old speaks with apparent callousness as he walks by the body of the girl he has killed. A fourteen-year-old jokes about "body parts in her pocket" after bashing in her mother's head with a candlestick holder. And a fifteen-year-old laughingly names his accomplice "Homicide" after participating in a robbery that culminated in the victim's death. Seemingly remorseless acts such as these can have a crucial impact on the way a child or adolescent fares in the juvenile justice or criminal system. Yet, when one looks closely at what the courts interpret as indicators of remorselessness - taking into account psychological findings about the developmental stages, sociological theories about the code of the street, and literary portrayals of the paradoxes of the human mind - these indicators often appear ambiguous, the courts' interpretations problematic.

This article employs psychology, sociology, and literature to investigate the expectation of remorse in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. More specifically, it presents seven in-depth case studies of juveniles who were charged with murder or attempted murder and whose apparent lack of remorse played a salient role in the legal process. Through these case studies, the article challenges the law's assumption that any decent, redeemable person, regardless of age, will exhibit sorrow and contrition after committing a heinous crime.

Beyond challenging the courts' ability to interpret the emotional state of a juvenile, the article questions the validity of remorse as a predictor of future character. Drawing on Biblical and literary examples and the psychoanalytic theory of the superego, the article suggests that remorse, as the most agonizing form of guilt, may actually undermine the ability to "turn one's life around" and begin anew.

Posted by: George | Apr 26, 2009 8:24:51 PM

This was written about H.L Mencken but it really is just as applicable to Supremacy Claus. "With a pig's eyes that never look up, with a pig's snout that loves muck, with a pig's brain that knows only the sty, and a pig's squeal that cries only when he is hurt, he sometimes opens his pig's mouth, tusked and ugly, and let's out the voice of God, railing at the whitewash that covers the manure about his habitat."

Posted by: Daniel | Apr 26, 2009 9:40:29 PM

Concerning Donald Schmidt - it's a real shame this man now is caught in a legal limbo that does not seem to apply or affect anyone else. I am curious as to why he was not charged as an adult in the first place. The DA, the court, someone must have made the decision at some point to keep the case in juvenile court. Therefore, rehabilitation should be part of the goal for this young man. Is he receiving any sort of treatment, counseling, etc. to rehabilitate him and restore him? At a minimum, the juvenile system he's stuck in should offer some rehabiliting services since he's been determined to still pose a danger for the past 12 years during which time he should have been released if this obscure California law did not exist. As a former defense attorney, this seems to be one of those nightmare type cases that is driven by politics and appeasing the public and the victim's mother and family. Normally, the kid would serve his original sentence and be released rather than spending an extra 12 years or so locked up and going back to court every 2 years to have his mental state scrutinized. Also, I am concerned about his housing arrangements since adults are typically separated from juveniles. This could mean that he has been in isolation or something close to it for the past 20 years. No wonder he still presents as dangerous!